By the 1960's supermarkets had begun to appear. Northampton's own entrepreneur Frank Brierley went over to the States to see how it was done, and down in Gold Street started what must have been one of the first supermarkets in a provincial English town. Then Victor Value opened up alongside the Market Square. At first the supermarkets ignored the fruit and veg. trade, and it was all stuff that came in tins, bottles and packets.
Gradually though, they began to make contracts with growers and importers, and invaded our trade. Supermarkets wave a big stick, and by the 1980's they had a stranglehold on the shopping basket. Supermarkets now gobble up a greedy 80% of the nation's spend, and now they want the remaining 20%, and are trying hard to get it. They can never be content with anything less.
To greedily grasp the remaining 20% the supermarkets will go very local, to take the trade of those who live in larger villages or small towns, or the terraced rows in the larger towns. Sainsburys Local and Tesco Express are popping up everywhere, right next door to the few remaining independents, on vacant sites that the supermarkets themselves helped to empty. In a short time these smaller supermarkets leach business away from independents, and can easily afford to continue to do so until the independent collapses.
Town centres are being killed off by - guess what? - big supermarkets on town periphery sites with lots and lots of free parking. Along with the retail parks, of course, who (together with the high business rate) have kicked the small specialist shopkeepers out of the town centres.
Supermarkets are keen to target young people and sign them up good and early, to a lifestyle where the supermarket is the only source of supply, and where loyalty to a particular supermarket is rewarded with the odd halfpenny in the pound, big deal. These busy people see themselves shopping in only one big shopping spree once a week.
You may have noticed that a lot of the fruit and veg. in supermarkets is already prepared, especially salad materials, to save the shopper the trouble when they get home. But only at a price of course, and how safe is it? Much of it gets washed several times in a chlorine solution, and not always rinsed thoroughly afterwards. This little bit of 'cleaning' adds quite a lot to the end price. Why is it done? Well, apart from the extra profit, it helps keep the washed salad materials looking fresh a bit longer, and that's essential for shelf life.
You're better off buying fresh items daily from your local market, and using them while fresh. They'll taste better, with more vitamins, more minerals, more enzymes, etc. You can buy nice gear coming up to the best degree of ripeness on the market, but in the supermarkets everything looks green and backward, because it's got to last as long as possible on the shelves.
This year we are told, the fiercest Christmas supermarket price war looks set to break out across Britain. But I sometimes wonder about these so-called 'Price Wars'. If you go in Sainsburys you'll see notices everywhere saying brightly: 'Price Check! Same price as Tesco!' Now go into Tesco and you'll see similar notices proclaiming: 'Look! Same price as Sainsburys!' Do they really think people are fooled? It's pretty obvious that if the price of an item in both places is the same then there is no real competition, only agreement, or price-fixing. If you are intending to compete, you will be charging slightly less than your nearest competitor, not the same, in order to take a bit of his trade. That's what competition is about, Mr Tesco and Mr Sainsbury.
All in all I feel very angry about the way the supermarkets are gradually squeezing the small trader and retailer out of business, whether it be in markets, corner shops, or remote villages. Once they move in they can reduce their prices for necessities to almost nothing, just to put any remaining opposition out of business. Then, when they have sole selling rights in the area, they can begin to stick their prices up again, and there will be nobody left to oppose them.
So we then get not a competitive marketplace for goods, but a monopoly. If you won't pay or can't pay their price, you will not eat; because the government who work hand in glove with the supermarkets will not regulate the prices you will be paying, only the supermarkets will. And if they have a monopoly within a given area, they can price their goods exactly as they wish.
Already we see this happening in the trade of fruit and vegetables; quite often I see these goods on sale in a supermarket at a price which is less than I have to pay to buy them wholesale. But when we the small traders are gone, the prices will rise astronomically, because there will be no commercial opposition. Because they are huge, and their investments vast, the supermarkets can afford to play a waiting game.
Save the Market! The fight goes on...
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